Video: A personal apology to the president of Afghanistan

AllahpunditPosted at 8:13 pm on February 24, 2012

Via Gateway Pundit. You’re going to watch this and a question is going to occur to you, so let me answer that question up front: No, we can’t nominate her instead of Romney or Santorum. C’mon — she looks much younger than 35.

The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan sent a top secret cable to Washington last month warning that the persistence of enemy havens in Pakistan was placing the success of the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan in jeopardy, said U.S. officials.

The cable, written by Ryan C. Crocker, amounted to an admission that years of U.S. efforts to curtail insurgent activity in Pakistan by the lethal Haqqani network, a key Taliban ally, were failing. Because of the intended secrecy of that message, Crocker sent it through CIA channels, rather than normal State Department ones.

The cable, which was described by several officials familiar with its contents, could be used as ammunition by senior military officials who favor more aggressive action by the United States against the Haqqani havens in Pakistan. It also could buttress calls from senior military officials for a more-gradual withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan as the 2014 deadline for ending combat operations approaches…

“The sanctuaries are a deal-killer for the [Afghan war] strategy,” said a senior defense official, who was familiar with the current debate and who, like several officials in this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations.

Are they a “deal-killer”? Somehow I find it hard to believe that O’s going to slow things down after (a) Panetta already mentioned reducing our combat forces a year ahead of schedule, (b) Pentagon officials have started whispering to the media about shifting from counterinsurgency to counterterrorism led by Special Ops, and (c) Americans are no doubt sicker of the war than ever after a week of watching Afghans rampage over a few burned books. He wants to be the president who brought the troops home and suddenly he has more political cover than ever to do that — with an election just eight months away. I wonder what he’ll do.